Shoes Outside the Door

Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center

By the late 1970s, the San Francisco Zen Center had - under the spiritual leadership of its founder, Shunryu Suzuki, and his Dharma heir, Richard Baker - grown to be hugely successful, accruing wealth, property, and prestige, its aesthetics tinged with the glamour of celebrity. Zen Center's holdings included Tassajara Hot Springs near Big Sur, Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, a clothing company, and a bakery. The Tassajara Bread Book was riding the best-seller lists and Greens, its wildly successful upscale vegetarian restaurant on the San Francisco Bay, was inspiring an entire generation of restaurant professionals. For a long while, Zen Center seemed to be the hot core of the counterculture.